.patagonia

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Status:	Withdrawn
Type:	Brand TLD
PIC Submitted:	Yes, Download Here
Priority #:	1872 - Patagonia, Inc.

.patagonia was a Brand TLD being proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant was sportswear company Patagonia, Inc.

Due to GAC advice, the applicant withdrew their application for the string.

GAC Early Warnings & PIC

In June 2012 at ICANN Prague, Argentina's GAC representative told the ICANN Board that it was against .patagonia as a closed brand TLD, as Patagonia is also the name of a region in South America comprising the southern parts of Argentina and Chile. The statement was followed by a letter on August 3 from Ambassador Alfredo Morelli of Argentina's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ICANN's leadership stating the same. According to the Applicant Guidebook, geographic regions listed in ISO 3166 cannot be applied for except as a geoTLD, however the region of Patagonia does not appear under any of the ISO 3166 lists.

The application went on to receive over 1,500 comments during the public comment period. At one point, NIC Argentina offered giveaways to its Twitter followers for commenting and objecting to the application.

The application was subject to two GAC Early Warnings from the representatives of Chile and Argentina; the warning system is noted as a strong recommendation on behalf of national governments to the ICANN Board that a given TLD application should be denied. The Argentinean warning notes that Patagonia is a region of Argentina and that the application has no support from national or regional governments. Via a PIC submission, the Patagonia company noted that it was hoping to meet with the governments of Chile and Argentina to come to a mutual understanding on the acceptable use of the TLD. As of March 2013, when the PIC was submitted, this meeting had not occurred.

Although the United States government initially opposed the GAC objection to geographic-looking strings such as .patagonia, they put out a statement in July 2013 that revised their position, saying it would remain neutral in the case of .patagonia, thereby allowing the GAC to present a consensus objection regarding the string and all of its IDN versions.

IO Objection

ICANN's Independent Objector (IO) filed a Community Objection against the .patagonia string. The IO is an appointed authority on international law whose role is to object to strings on the grounds of Community harm and Limited Public Interest were detailed in the applicant guidebook. His objections are official objections and are funded by ICANN, though his office is otherwise independent. Reasons for the specific case against .patagonia were not initially given, but the community objection generally argues that the TLD faces opposition or is contrary to a significant portion of a community which it purportedly aims to serve. The IO must determine: That the community is a clearly delineated community; that there is a strong association between the community and the string applied for; there is a strong association between the segment of the community on whose half we objects and the string itself; and he must determine that the TLD would produce a significant material detriment to this sizable portion of the community.

He also objected to the .amazon application and its two IDN transliterations. Those applications were also under scrutiny by members of the ICANN community concerned with geographic protections.

Community Objection

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina filed a community objection against the application.